PC Gamer ShootMania Launch Cup match report - week two

Tuesday evening saw the second week of the PC Gamer ShootMania Launch Cup. A double elimination tournament fought in the newly released ShootMania Storm's 3v3 Elite mode, nowhere else can you find so much drama and upset entwined with quite this level of balletic wall-jumps and astonishingly pixel-perfect shooting. The tournament is played entirely in Elite mode, which you can read more about here. In short, the first team reach nine points in this attack/defend game mode wins the game, although, as in tennis, a two-point margin is needed to win. Matches are fought on a best of three basis, with losers in the top bracket automatically relegated to the lower bracket. Once there, they may well be able to fight their way back to the grand final, but another loss in the lower bracket will see them kicked out of the tournament. If you didn't watch on Tuesday, you can still do so below - things kick off at the 15 minute mark. Be warned, beneath the video there are spoilers.

"It's either going to be a close, or really, really, be a landslide to Dignitas," predicted expert commentator Zaccubus, of the first match of the evening, which saw Team Dignitas EU face off against ONOZ At first, he seemed to be right. Dignitas took the first game confidently, with solid defence on the map Paladin leading to a 9-5 lead.

The next game, however, throw up of a surprise. After an early lead by ONOZ was narrowed down to 9 points for both teams, attacking ONOZ player Piwee (who put in a strong performance across the duration of the match), pushed ONOZ back ahead to 10-9. Piwee and his team managed to successfully defend the next point- dragging out the match to a third and final game where they retained their momentum, besting Dignitas 9-4, and knocking the hotly tipped team down into the lower bracket, where they can't afford to lose another game.

It was a surprising outcome, tied, perhaps, to an equally big surprise outside of the game. Team Dignitas' third player wasn't, as expected, Alexey "Cypher" Yanushevsky, but was instead Swedish player Benczek. We're unlikely to find out what difference the presence of Cypher might make to Dignitas' prospects, however, because Yanushevsky yesterday announced a break from competitive gaming, tweeting, "I dont feel, I can play competevly with young motivated players...so I let them play".

"It will be interesting to see who Team Dignitas choose as their 3rd to battle through the lower bracket next week," commentator Ziggy “nVc” Orzeszek told us, "as I'm not entirely convinced of Benczek's performance within the team."

Other matches in the session saw Swiss Bulls fighting their way to the eighth round, along with Fnatic, Team Infused and n!faculty (who defeated ONOZ despite that team's strong performance earlier in the evening). Team Infused played a particularly strong match against a Lemondogs team made up Daladave and Eliance of TCM fighting alongside original Lemondogs player Nick0. Their match next week against IPL champions Fnatic promises to be quite the clash.

"Team Infused appear to be stronger than ever," said Ziggy, "and I'm sure I speak on behalf of the community when I question the limit of their ability. They're improving every week and a huge upset is most definitely on the cards for their game against Fnatic - this is definitely the game to watch."

That game - and others - takes place on Tuesday evening, kicking (well, maniacally shooting) off at 7pm.